Two of Silicon Valley’s most well-known high-tech titans, Elon Musk and his former protege Sam Altman, are in the midst of a very public feud about the future of Openai, the company behind the groundbreaking ChatGpt. .
Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has filed multiple lawsuits over the past year, blocking Altman from restructuring Openai from Hybridised’s nonprofit to a for-profit company.
Earlier this week, Musk raised his interest by offering to buy the nonprofit for $97.4 billion to maintain the original mission of AI Research Labs.
The mask’s proposal was quickly rejected by Altman.
In the latest development, Musk said via lawyers on Wednesday that he would drop his offer if Openai remains a nonprofit.
In their legal shoot, the two are publicly trading barbs attacking each other’s personalities.
So, how did things get so intense between two Silicon Valley’s most famous CEOs?
According to Openai, what is the origin of the feud?
Musk (53) and Altman, 39, were once co-workers.
The two co-founded Openai in 2015, along with several other prominent figures in artificial intelligence research. Musk and Altman served as the company’s first co-chairs.
At the time, Musk was the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and was a much more famous figure in Silicon Valley.
Openai started out as a nonprofit organization and its mission focused on research and safety, rather than making money.
According to Openai accounts, problems begin to arise in 2017 and if you want to create artificial general information, you will need more computing power and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. It’s become.
According to an internal email shared by Openai on the website, Musk is said to want to switch to a for-profit organization he is CEO. Musk is said to have withheld funds for retaliation as differences of opinion about the company’s future escalated.
According to Openai, Musk left the company in 2018, but initially still supported the job. He continued to acquire Twitter in 2022 and founded his own AI company Xai in 2023.
In the years since Musk set out, the opening has undergone a major change. In 2019, Openai created a for-profit subsidiary to help raise funds, turning the company into a kind of non-profit organization.
Three years later, in 2022, the company became famous along with Altman following the release of its groundbreaking ChatGpt.
According to Musk, what is the origin of the feud?
Tensions between Musk and Altman began to escalate once again in 2023, when Microsoft agreed to invest $1 billion in Openai.
Musk did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, but his views on Open Eye have been shared in the legal application.
Musk last year claimed in a lawsuit that Openai has become a virtual subsidiary of Microsoft, calling the transaction a “Shakespeare’s proportions” deception ceit and a bid by Altman to “cash” it with the generated AI.
We also launched an anti-trust investigation into the transaction, as some of the concerns about the mask were shared, particularly by US and European regulators.
Musk expanded the lawsuit in November, claiming that the two companies dominate the market for generating AI.
He claimed that Altman told investors not to support Musk’s Zai and other rivals during the Open’s latest fundraiser, and that Microsoft and Open’s relationship has been a “open nonprofit character.” He said the rest of the product needs to be released to maintain that it is not self-intake.
What did Musk and Altman say about each other?
The two CEOs have pulled punches online in media, court filings. Earlier this week, the pair publicly clashed with X.
“I don’t thank you, but I’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if necessary,” Altman wrote using X’s previous name.
“Swindler,” Musk wrote accordingly.
In an attack in the media, Altman said in an interview Tuesday that his former mentor is motivated by his own demons and is run “from an uncertainty position” rather than concerns about the future of open AI. Ta.
“I feel bad for that guy,” Altman told Bloomberg TV at the Paris AI Action Summit.
“I think it’s about slowing down the competitors and catching up with him, but I really don’t know… to the extent that everyone does,” he said of Musk and his rival Xa.
Musk, on his part, portrays Altman as a greedy and “uncrushed” con man in his lawsuit against Open.
In a court application in August, Musk’s lawyers called the management of open AI Altman “hot air charity…longcon” and “textbook tales of altruism and greed.”
Musk’s lawyers also alleged that Altman and other members of Openy “preyed on Musk’s humanitarian concerns about existential dangers raised by artificial intelligence that Musk had deliberately courted and deceived.” .
Why does Openai want to be private?
The boards of Altman and Openai alleges that it will need to be restructured to acquire funding for the next round from SoftBank, a Japanese multinational company that the company has recently cherished for $260 billion.
It is not unheard of for-profit companies to switch from nonprofits to commercial companies, particularly the healthcare sector, but the scale of Openai’s efforts stands out, said Rose Chan-Louis, founding executive director of the Lowell Milken Centre. Charitable and nonprofit organizations.
Under the proposed restructuring by Openai, the for-profit subsidiary will compensate the nonprofit’s assets and establish new for-profit companies, but Musk’s $97.4 billion offer complicates the transaction.
“When a conversion is being made, the next challenge is to determine the amount of compensation that nonprofits should receive. This must be fair market value. Previously, Openai has been 3 billion to 40 billion yen. It is reportedly been thinking something within the dollar range,” Chan Loui told Al Jazeera.
“The offer from Elon Musk challenges the validity of that number. The nonprofit committee needs to “consider” the offer, and Openai has to go to the nonprofit committee and the Delaware Attorney General and California. I need to explain it. To provide,” she said.
What does Open say about the mask offer?
In addition to exchanging Barbs online with Musk in the media, Altman filed a motion to dismiss Musk’s lawsuit.
The court denied allegations that it attempted to block funds for other startups and questioned Musk’s intentions.
In a legal application shared with Al Jazeera, Altman’s lawyer Jordan S. said that Mask’s “concerns” about the future of the opening “doesn’t apply as long as Mask and his allies are buyers.”
“Musk will transfer all of that assets to him for his financial interests and his competing AI business and hand-picked private investors,” Eth said according to the filing.
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